I collected baseball cards from the late '80s through 2002. Then I went to college and when I came out, I was lost. There were too many brands, sets, choices, relics, autos, parallels, variations. It was a turn off. However, I slowly made my way back.
So here is my attempt to venture back into the hobby. I'll buy a few packs of cards here and there, comment on some cards I have, send out some TTMs, and follow the progress of my Topps Yankees Project.

Tabs

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Baseball and the TTM community lost another gem, as "Bullet" Bob Turley passed away on Saturday. Turley was a Cy Young Award winner with the Yanks, and was always a very generous signer. He resides in my Topps Yankees Collection for 1956.

To those who celebrate, Happy Easter! I hope you enjoy the day with your families, and that some cards found their way into your Easter baskets. As a kid, I could always count on a few packs being in there. No so as an adult, but that's ok. It's a tradition I'll pass down to my son.

Happy Opening Day to the Astros and Rangers. Houston, welcome to the AL!

Saturday, March 30, 2013

I had fun with the first installment of the vintage trade game last month (link here), which brought on three trades. Several of the cards went unclaimed, so I figured I'd throw them back out there with a few new additions.

As a refresher, claim one (via the comment section) of the vintage cards below, and send me a vintagecard in return, preferably a Yankee. However, feel free to send non-Yanks as well. I don't mind at all. Just don't tell me what you're sending. It doesn't have to be exact year for year, just in the same vicinity.

If you'd like to ask me any questions about a card's condition, feel free.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Last but not least, part three of JBF’s package bombs. I
claimed the following two cards in a recent post:

But of course he didn’t leave it there. Nope. He had to
throw in some sweet cards he picked up on his trip to Mobile. We’ll start with
the two autos. Yep, two. First off, Bubba Crosby! Remember when Cashman said
that Bubba was going to be the starting CFer? Then signed Johnny Damon out of
nowhere. I did not own a Bubba auto, so this is a sweet addition.

Next up, a Steve Howe auto. Seriously?! Freakin’ sweet. The
Leaf Signature Series card s signed perfectly on-card. Most of us know about
Steve’s rough life and the fact that he passed away at a young age. He was a
very talented reliever, and unfortunately fought with substance abuse for the
majority of his career.

Well also included a team bag of Yanks, and here are a few
favorites. I love any of the mid-90’s Denny’s cards, so this Boggs is money. It actually shows a short clip of his swing instead of just a 3D image.

No words necessary for this guy.

And finally, a random yanks prospect who never made it, and
a guy who just participated in the NFL combine.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Bomb #2 from JBFcame as a result of claiming this Quentin
Richardson jersey card. I find this card to be amazing. Get ready to have your
mind blown. Ok, the photo of Richardson is in a Phoenix jersey, but his card’s
logo is a Knicks logo. No big deal, right? That happens a lot. Well, check out
the back. The jersey is part of a warm-up worn by Q. Ok, that’s specific. Wait,
what’s that? Worn when he was a member of the Los Angeles Clippers?!?!
Whhhhhat?! So the card is of him in a Suns jersey, with a Knicks logo, with a
swatch from the Clippers. Yep, sounds like Q’s career alright.

I would love to see some Octavio Dotel cards like this, or
other journeymen. It could be a pretty fun insert set, and a good way for Topps
to dump some old swatches and not call it Turkey Red

Although that Richardson is awesome, this card is even
awesomer. A 2005 Prime Patches Nick Johnson jersey/auto. Believe it or now,
this is the first card I have that has both a swatch and an autograph on it.

Wes also threw in a few more Yanks. Here are a sampling of
Jeters and Mattinglys.

This is a three part series about some bombing JBF recently
hit me with. While one was the standard PWE, two were packages. I have a big
old stack of cards ready to go to Wes in return, but I’ve been a little lazy
getting to the post office. They will go out this week, I promise.

I’ll start with the PWE, which contained six cards. The
other packages held some serious mojo, but I’ll start gradually.

Here are the first three cards. I REALLY appreciated and was
excited about the Bert Campaneris 1984 Topps. See, I do own this card, but my
only copy is signed for my Topps Yankees Project. I’m so happy to have an
unsigned version now.

The last three cards were a few from the past few years of
guys who had shorts stints in NY. I actually sent this exact card to Chad
Qualls for his auto this spring, and he hasn’t returned it. I’m assuming Qualls
receives the same amount of fan mail as Derek Jeter and Albert Pujols, so no
surprise about the lack of return. Maybe I’ll try him again once the season
starts.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

I've been dabbling with Listia a bit lately. With my hiatus from eBay, I've been casually dabbing. I've sold a few cards, and I'm still learning what will bring in a lot of credits, and what won't. Some cards/lots that I thought would do well didn't, while some other cards did far better than I would have imagined.

That goes for bidding too. I'm still really figuring out how many credits are appropriate for something that catches my eye, and what is not.

Anyhow, since Yankees don't come up much, and when they do they are often quite overpriced (like 499 for a common 1991 Donruss), I have been looking for some other stuff, including Hall of Famers. I picked up this 1992 Fleer Roberto Alomar to add to my son's HOF collection for 300 credits.

But that's not the only card that caught my eye. In fact, it was this 1995 Studio Platinum insert of Alomar. A while ago, I blogged about the gold Mattingly that Jaybarkerfan sent me. I liked that card so much, I really wanted a Platinum. I'm glad I did. The card is really freakin' cool.

If it was just the Fleer for 300, I would have passed. However, the Studio Alomar made this a must have for 300 credits.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

I thought I had been pretty good about picking up Tino
Martinez Flair cards, but bloggers keep sending me ones I don’t have. This 1996
Flair Gold parallel comes to me from DHoff over at Coot Veal and the Vealtones. I recently
won a contest over there (more to come on that), and Dustin sent me a batch of Tinos in
addition to some other stuff.

Growing up, Flair was always a big deal for me. I wasn’t
allowed to even really look at it. I remember the card section at CVS (always
had a ton of packs), and Flair was off to the side by itself. It came in little
boxes, and the price was astronomical compared to the other stuff. I’ll stick
to Topps and Score, thank you.

Over the years, I got my hands on several Tino Flair cards.
But new ones keep popping up. In later years, that had all those variations,
but this one was from 1996. No idea why I didn’t have it.

It’s as thick as a normal Flair card, so that’s a plus. I
remember the first Flair card I ever got was a football card. They came one per
pack in Fleer’s football set. It was of Willie Roaf of the Saints. I showed my
dad the card, and I remember him holding it up and saying “wow, what a nice
card that is.” He probably hadn’t held a baseball card since the ‘50s or ‘60s,
so this probably was quite a change from what he remembered.

I like the gold background as well. Flair’s design always was
very simple, yet sophisticated. It always felt classy, and this card is no
exception.

Monday, March 25, 2013

I can't say much that hasn't been said already, but I'd like to pay my respect to Virgil Trucks. As a TTMer, he was probably the most generous signer out there. He signed everything, and always sent a card of his own. More remarkable, he sent personal responses, which shows that he took time to read each letter.

I had two separate TTM successes with Trucks. The first, he signed my 1959 Topps, which now lives in my Topps Yankees Project. The second one was last year. I picked up a cheap, beat up 1953 Topps. I sent that to him, as well as a letter telling him about the recent birth of my son, and he included a signed card for him, as well.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

I could use some tips on how to organize and track my Tino Martinez collection. For a while, I was doing ok. I had a list off all Tino cards ever made that I ripped from some website. It was accurate for the most part, and may have been missing 3-5% of all Tinos, including the newer stuff. From there, I would simply highlight in yellow the ones I had. Problem is, one day I logged onto blogger, and it was no where to be found.

It made me realize how dumb I was to only keep it in one place. For those of you with a player collection of more than 500 cards (I'm probably at about 700 different Tinos), how do you track it? Do you simply go card by card and enter it into a spread sheet or Google doc? Do you have any websites that are helpful? I've heard of Zistle. Anything else that has accurate lists of what cards were made, sortable by player?

I'm going to have to start from scratch, but would love to know some good, fool-proof methods that work for you guys.

A few weeks ago, I offered to send Jeff from Cardboard Catastrophes two cards for his 1973 Topps set quest. I didn't need anything in return, but Jeff insisted he send me a HOFer for my son's binder. Not necessary, but who am I to say no?

Jeff sent me WAAAAAY too much for the two '73s I sent. The first card was the one Jeff had mentioned in the email - a 1956 Warren Giles. He went in to the HOF as an executive, so I figured that was a cool card to put in the binder.

While Jeff should have stopped there, he didn't. He included a note that said, "Here are a few dupes I had for your son's HOF binder." Um, I'm not sure how many people have has dupes of this next card:

Yes, a 1956 Topps Robin Roberts. Holy crap! I was floored when I pull that from the package.

The last card to fall out was this sweet Rollie Fingers 1974 Topps. Three HOFers. Great additions to the binder. Thanks again, Jeff!

Saturday, March 23, 2013

I haven't had a successful spring training in terms of TTM autographs. I'm at about 3 for 20. However, my fourth success came in today, and it's a big one. It completes 2013 for my Topps Yankees Project!

David Robertson signed and personalized my 2013 Topps card. The signature looks great in blue. I'll now add him to the binder, and set my sights on 2014 Topps.